Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is the systematic way in which Landscape Architects maintain, improve and broaden the competencies and expertise required in their professional lives. It is a process of life-long learning that draws on a range of activities across a career. For Landscape Architects, CPD should:

• relate to your practice as a Landscape Architect;
• be additional to activities already undertaken in the course of your practice or employment;
• broaden your experience in practice: and
• maintain an understanding of all competencies applicable to Landscape Architects.

Providing high-quality services for the long-term benefit of both the broader community and the environment in which we live is a strength of our profession. This requires us as Landscape Architects to maintain and enhance our skills and knowledge, while keeping abreast with changes in technologies, legislation and sustainable practices, as well as new products and materials. AILA requires Landscape Architects to participate in continuing professional development in recognition of the importance of life-long learning in maintaining and building competence.

Your commitment to maintaining your own CPD:

• enables you to build the competencies and expertise you need to succeed in a competitive business environment
• helps you to achieve your professional development and career goals
• builds your reputation with clients, within your organisation and across the profession
• makes you more employable, both in the profession and in related sectors

Each registered landscape architect is required to achieve an average of 30 CPD points per year over a 3 year period to maintain registration (90 points in total by the end of the 3 year period).

CPD activities should involve the acquisition of new knowledge and/or skills and be directly relevant to your practice and professional career goals. Approved CPD activities may be either FORMAL or INFORMAL:

• FORMAL CPD – a learning activity with stated outcomes that is formally assessed or has significant interaction between presenter and learner, or a specific online study module delivered by AILA or other endorsed CPD providers.
• INFORMAL CPD - a learning activity that may have stated outcomes and that involves no formal assessment process or significant interaction between presenter and learner.

  CPD points are allocated as follows:

• FORMAL CPD is worth two points per hour, and must include a written summary, assessment or engagement with the facilitator.
• INFORMAL CPD is worth one point per hour.

  You may find that some CPD events and study modules organized or endorsed by AILA have been allocated CPD points.

  INFORMAL points may include:

• personal study; personal professional research
• attendance at: talks, presentations, design workshops, lectures, conferences and seminars run by AILA, endorsed providers and other organisations
• structured visits and tours
• self-directed study
• writing for professional journals
• mentoring programs and school presentations
• professional presentations
• participation in professional committees, advisory groups related to government bodies or regulatory authorities
• participation in AILA organisational activities such as: committees, working groups, award juries and visiting panels to Landscape Architecture schools

  FORMAL points may include:

• structured courses with assessment activity/ies OR that include significant interaction between presenter and learner
• accredited courses at university, TAFE or other registered training organisations
• National and Chapter events which provide the possibility of formal assessment, including the national conference
• events provided by endorsed providers
• online CPD courses
• in-house courses provided by your practice
• part-time lecturing or tutoring at tertiary level
• undertaking a research piece (includes study tours) which results in published findings
• undertaking AILA organisational activities requiring writing, editing, policy development, advocacy, preparing responses to government legislation or policy, CPD planning and event delivery

It is good practice to develop an annual plan for your own CPD outlining your CPD objectives, proposed activities and timeframes:

1. Consider the work you will be required to undertake in your practice over the next twelve months and your own professional and career goals.
2. Identify the competencies and knowledge that you will need to achieve these. AILA’s Tree of Knowledge is a useful place to start.
3. Identify your strengths and gaps to help you decide where you would like to focus your learning. Consider your organisation’s learning and development plan (if applicable), your own learning style and your work and home commitments.
4. Establish your own CPD objectives and identify the types and timing of CPD activities that will best enable you to achieve your learning outcomes.

Ideally, CPD activities should follow the plan that you have developed for your professional needs and be undertaken regularly throughout the year. This will help to ensure that your CPD activities are relevant and ‘best fit’ for your needs, rather than being a last-minute scramble at the end of the CPD reporting period! However, AILA also encourages you to take advantage of other opportunities that arise where they help to build competencies or are simply areas of interest.

Given the diverse breadth of practice within Landscape Architecture, AILA encourages you to be proactive in seeking CPD opportunities through a range of activities and providers. AILA provides CPD opportunities, including events, talks, salons, workshops, festivals and online learning. Your local Chapter is a great starting point for CPD events, in addition to events offered nationally.

Other professional bodies – such as ASLA, NZILA, AIA, PIA – may also provide relevant opportunities for continuing professional development.

AILA has developed a module for recording your CPD. You can access this through your member profile.

Registered Landscape Architects are required to report on your CPD as part of your annual renewal. The online CPD module enables you to provide activity reports at that point or at any other time.

Any CPD events you register for through your AILA membership profile will be automatically applied to your account. For any external CPD activities you can report them in your profile by clicking on the CPD tab and adding your entries into the 'CPD entry' section using the green + symbol. 

In any three – four year period you will be audited to ensure you have achieved an average of 30 CPD points per year.

This ‘Quick Guide’ is intended to help you create professional development that offers useful learning for our members, which, in turn, serves to best position your organisation and build relationships with our members. Your commitment to working with AILA to educate our members on technical information relating to your product is very important to supporting our members with their everyday practice.

AILA is still in the process of developing our CPD guidelines for suppliers and needs to keep working together with our sponsors/suppliers to help you achieve the right focus on learning, balanced with the opportunity to present your products/services. AILA wants to help sponsors make the most of the connection with our members, which comes when members walk away feeling they have built their own knowledge and learned about products/services which help them do their job better/more easily. We are aiming to develop CPD with our partners that (1) avoids feeling more like a sales pitch and therefore risks being counter-productive for the partner and (2) makes real connections with AILA members as potential specifiers of your products or services.

So … In evaluating a presentation as Continuing Professional Development, AILA usually starts by considering theprimaryintent or objective of the materials: is it to build knowledge and skills of Landscape Architects or is it to promote/market a supplier and their services? As our CPD policy states, a CPD focus is reflected in stated learning objectives - which guide the emphasis of the content. A presentation where the primary focus is on providing information about your products and services and why our members should specify them - "who we are, what we do and why we have a great business for you"will most likely be received as a marketing pitch – regardless of your intent – and leave our members disappointed that their expectations of a professional development event were not met. You and your products and services can, of course, have a presence, but aim to do this in a way that complements the learning focus. For example: your products appear as examples within a particular type of useage, some research shows your type of product is superior for the job or there are some closing slides about how you can help our members put into practice some of the learning you have just shared.

Summary of core content for a CPD presentation

The sorts of attributes that should be reflected in CPD presentations include:

• there are learning objectives up front
• there is useful, practical learning about design, specification, installation and maintenance, including:
• design/installation/maintenance considerations/tips
• costs and cost comparisons
• advantages/disadvantages of products/applications/installations
• Australian Standards and legislative information/requirements
• do’s and don’t’s and/or other learning from your experience
• well structured – may include summaries for each section
• case study examples to illustrate application and/or what’s wrong and how to fix/do differently
• it has a practical/applied focus
• great visuals to illustrate applications and good/bad installation, etc
• may include research or other supporting technical information
• there is a quiz/assessment to make it formal CPD (this is not required for informal CPD)

Not every presentation would have all these attributes, but these are the sorts of things that contribute to useful learning.

CPD points are allocated on the basis of 1 point per hour of content/delivery for informal CPD and 2 points per hour for formal CPD. Q & A sessions can be included. Breaks and travel time are excluded.

Please feel free to discuss this with the AILA Chapter Manager and to seek further advice from the National CPD Committee as you start to develop your content.

You can access AILA’s CPD Policy here. 

You can contact AILA’s National Office for more information and guidance.

You can communicate with AILA’s CPD Committee via national office.